A silicon microphone usually consists of an MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) chip (e.g. a silicon microphone) and an ASIC (application specific integrated circuit), which serves as a signal converter, which are assembled together into one SMD (surface mounting device) module. Such a microphone module will then usually be mounted on a printed circuit board by the respective manufacturer.
Such a silicon microphone usually includes a thin membrane and at least one stiff counter electrode (backplate), which have a direct contact to the environment via a sound channel. Due to this, they are vulnerable towards particles. In particular in case of a pressure impulse which may e.g. occur in a mobile phone, such particles are highly accelerated and may destroy the membrane upon impingement thereof, and may thus render the component unusable.
In order to protect these sensitive membranes, nowadays, one or more particle filters (mesh), usually made of plastic texture, are inserted into the sound channel in front of the printed circuit board (PCB), onto which the microphone module is mounted, during the manufacturing of a terminal device (e.g. of a mobile phone). However, this has to be provided for each single microphone and is very costly and labor intensive.